Nothing I Wouldn't Do
by missmontana
Summary: Years after enlisting for war in Afghanistan, Damon received some devastating news about his brother. Upon returning home, Damon is thrust into custody battles, legal fees and a big lonely house, only to realise that he just can't deal with it all. AH AU
1. Chapter 1

Breaks like this didn't happen every often, and Damon was more than happen to sit back and put his feet up. War takes a lot out of someone, not only physically, but it was mentally draining, too.

He expected a relaxing three days before he was pushed out into the front again. He expected to check mail from home, to hear all of the crazy stories his brother had for him. He expected that he was going to have a sneaky beer or even a game of basketball with the other troops in his command. He wanted to sneak around late and flirt with a couple of nurses and maybe even let it escalate.

He expected to have a good time.

Damon didn't get any of that.

The second he walked into base camp, he was told to report straight to the leading officer. They said it was important. They said it was about his brother and it was urgent.

Damon was unsure, but bolted for the tent, regardless.

He was told to sit down, and that made him feel darker inside. He was worried now, what was going on?

"Lieutenant Salvatore," General Groom started. "Damon… there's no easy to say this, but your brother and his missus have died. I'm so sorry."

Damon saw white. He felt like someone has just punched him in the gut. His legs buckled beneath him, and knew for certain that he was just about to pass out. This was never meant to happen, Stefan was meant to grow old and have a great life, a career and a _family_. Everyone expected Damon to be the one who died at a young age, especially because of the way he spent his teenage years. Even after his battle with drugs and partying and bad influences, Stefan was always there to help him up again, bail him out. _He_ was the strong. Damon was not.

He barely heard General Groom shouting for help, shouting to get Damon's attention. Damon couldn't feel himself anymore. He felt detached and lonely. His parents died a few years back, and now that Stefan was dead, Damon was _alone_.

"No…" was all he whispered before the blackness consumed him.


	2. Chapter 2

The flight home had been long and drawn out. Damon was restless, and fidgeted the entire way, a million thoughts racing through his head at once. Many times he had tried to focus on just one thing, but, unfortunately, another would come racing its way down the conveyor belt in his mind.

A flight attendant walked past and asked for what seemed like the millionth time in the past hour and half if he wanted anything, like a pillow or blanket maybe, and for the millionth time he declined, saying that he was way too worked up to even attempt to try and sleep. Then again, it was a fourteen-hour flight to Los Angeles and a further four hours from LA to Virginia, and Damon could really use a distraction. He didn't trust himself to _not_ think the worst.

He stopped himself there. What else could be worse to think about other than your only living family has died? And worst of all, he was Damon's _brother_. His kid brother who he was meant to look after when Stefan grazed his knee, or broke his arm or teach the bullies a lesson when they picked on him. Damon did none of that, and now that Stefan was… dead (God, it was sounded so much like a bad dream), everything seemed to come crashing down around Damon so much harder.

God, his head was starting to hurt and Damon felt his eyes start to prickle again. This was all just way too much to take deal with in one day. A distraction was definitely ideal.

He ordered the pillow and blanket with a side order of scotch.

_~x~_

Damon hadn't been home in Mystic Falls for longer than an hour or so when the attorney's office called. They wanted to arrange a meeting for later that afternoon and, although they said that they understood that it's his first day back in the country, it was urgent. Reluctantly Damon agreed and hung up, muttering something about everything being too urgent these days. He gets it. His brother and—apparently—wife (when did that happen?) had died in a car accident and there was a funeral or two to arrange within the next week or so and somewhere in the middle of all this he had to pull six-thousand dollars out of his ass in order to pay for it.

As he said before, he gets it; he just wishes people would leave him alone to grieve on his own terms, dammit. It was just so frustrating.

Shuffling around the drawers in the bedroom of his apartment, Damon found some worn, comfy old jeans, a black tee and the keys to his Camaro. He was as ready as he could ever be in this sort of situation, and was determined to get this stupid meeting over and done with before he could find an excuse to weasel his way out of it.

Damon paused at the door for less than a second to put on the wristband Stefan gave him years ago. _Congrats! One year sober_, he had said.


	3. Chapter 3

Damon casually made his way up the stairs to the local attorney of Mystic Falls. He'd been here a few times before for consults about some basic crimes he had committed when he was a teen, his parents by his side. Now, though, he had no one with him. He was alone, yet again, and for some reason, that had been the prominent thought in his head for the last thirty-six hours.

Alone.

Damon. Was. Alone.

He could almost feel the emptiness around him. On the short drive here, Damon had a sinking feeling well up inside him whenever he saw couples enjoying the day around them, and the more people he saw, the more the feeling settled deeper inside his stomach.

Shaking his head, he addressed the receptionist saying that he had an appointment with his brother's attorney. They let him in straight away, not bothering to check the books.

_Not concerned that I might not be who I say I am? These people are far too trusting._

He was led to an under-average sized office towards the back of the building. _MR. ADAM JENSEN _the plaque had read on the middle-aged man's desk and that sparked an image from when he was younger. He was the attorney that his father had insisted on bringing him to whenever he had broken a different law from the last one just to find out the ramifications because of it. From what Damon could recall, this man was a prick. Plain and simple, and had an excellent memory.

"Mr. Salvatore, long time no see, I believe. I do wish we could met again under better circumstances," Jensen held out his hand for Damon to shake. Damon stared at it for a moment before grasping it firmly. "Firm handshake…" the older man muttered.

"I hardly think seeing a lawyer at any time could be under 'better circumstances.'" He sat without being shown to a chair. "Can we get this over and done with? I haven't slept in over sixty hours, save for a few cat naps, and I am dying for a 12pm sleep in," Damon said impatiently, putting up a 'bravado' front. To be honest, he just didn't want to this, seeing the attorney now or any of this, to be real. All he wanted to do was finish his last two months on duty before returning home to his brother's welcoming arms.

Mr. Jensen frowned. "Mr Salvatore—"

"Damon," he corrected.

"—Damon. This is hardly the time to want to think about sleep. Your brother has just died."

"I think I know that, sir. I wouldn't be here if he didn't. Can we please just skip to reading the will or whatever? I'm not in the mood to be lectured at this point in time."

Damon knew he sounded like an ass. And guess what, he didn't care. He wanted to suffer through twelve hours of sleep and feel like he only slept a third of that so he could deal with all of this—shit with a fresh_er_ head.

"As you wish."

_~x~_

Damon's wrist was aching. He just signed about ten sheets of legal bullshit and read through a further six of—of, _blah_. Seriously. He knew straight away that his brother wrote this goddamned thing, with the constant fixating of minute details that just about made him ready to pound his head against a wall until his nose bled just so that he could have an excuse to _stop reading_. It was like he was reading those essays Damon got his little brother to write for him in high school, he could barely comprehend it.

_Damn, even in death, Stefan is still a big pain in my ass._

"Are we done here?" He asked, stretching his tired and cramped legs, his knees making a slight _pop_ in protest. Damon started moving for the door.

"Not quite yet."

_Oh, God, what does he want now?_

"What is it?"

"It's about the custody of Annalise Miranda Salvatore."

"Who?" Damon was confused. What was he on about?

Surprise flashed across the lawyers face. "Damon, how long has it been since you last spoke with your brother?"

"About eight, nine months ago. I was just about to be deployed again, I didn't have the time to have a really long conversation with him, but he wouldn't shut up." It wasn't easy to remember every time he spoke with his brother. Damon on really remembered the times when they spoke that made him smile. Afghanistan was a horrible place. He'll thank his lucky star if never has to go back there ever again.

"Son, I believe what your brother was _trying_ to tell you was that he newly became a father."


	4. Chapter 4

"I… he… What?"

"I said, I think that your brother, Stefan Salvatore, had become a _father_. He and his wife, Elena Gilbert-Salvatore, had named you as the sole guardian for their daughter, Analise Miranda Salvatore."

Damon blinked, stared, and blinked again. He was an _uncle?_ What?

"B-but, I don't know anything about how to care for a child, let alone my brother's kid," he said with a shaky laugh. "How the hell am I supposed to do this on my own?"

Mr. Jensen frowned. "Well, you'll figure it out. Just as most first time parents do."

"But I'm not a parent, and never have been. How the hell am I supposed to—"

"Not my department. I'm happy to talk more about the will if that's your wish, and tell you that Elena's parents want custody of their grandchild—"

"No. That's not an option," Damon said firmly. Sure Elena's parents seemed like they were nice enough people the few times he had met them, but he wouldn't trust them as far as he could throw them—and then some. Damon considered himself to be a pretty good judge of character, except for the _few_ people he was wrong about in the past, and he could count all of _those_ people on one hand.

Jensen rolled his eyes. "Alright then… I could also tell you that it was their wish for you to have signed the deed to your childhood home and raise their child in it."

He paused for a moment, waiting for Damon to respond. He just shrugged. "Whatever."

"Your nonchalance isn't very convincing, Damon."

"And your reassurance isn't very appealing, either. Can we just cut to the chase already? I've been waiting for about five minutes for you to tell me where in the world my niece is."

Mr. Jensen sat back into his chair and clasped his hands together. "I didn't think you were interested, Damon." They stared some more at each other, Damon determined to prove the guy wrong. "Okay, then," the middle-aged man said finally and leaned over to type in something on his computer, grabbed a yellow legal pad and wrote down the address.

"Now, I need you wait until at least tomorrow before you go and see her. There are legal parameters that need to be taken care of before you can go and collect her. I suggest that it would be best if you went to home and make sure everything is in order. Understand?"

Damon stared at the piece of paper in the man's semi-outstretched hand; the details on the legal paper were going to determine the rest of his life. Was he willing to take the jump? Get onto the bandwagon that parents rode on? He considered it for a split second before nodding internally. He didn't give a damn. Damon may have been a craptastic brother, but he was always one for family.

He snatched at the paper before he could change his mind.

"Understood." Damon stood and turned to leave, hand just touching the doorknob when the lawyers voice stopped him.

"Mr. Salvatore?"

Damon turned and acknowledged him, nodded for him to continue.

"Good luck."


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: Hi hi! I'm baaaaaaack! So, I'm really sorry about this not being updated as soon as I possibly should have... Just to let you know, I wrote this (filler) chapter in about... oh, i don't know, 30 minutes in between checking emails and updating my profile and such, so please excuse me for any crappy grammar and such... so, enjoy! don't forget to review, i haven't had any for the longest time. *smiles*_

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><p>This part of town seemed familiar, and the eeriness of that very same familiarity is what shook Damon the most. He, for the life of him, could <em>not<em> remember why it was so goddamned familiar, and believe it or not, it was scary.

A scene flashed before his eyes; it was dark, and hazy, and all of the details were blurred. He remembered a house, a door opening to reveal a very, _very_ pissed of face, another showing lust-filled eyes, and one set of eyes so full of pity. There was something about those last pair of eyes… so familiar, yet so different. So very different to those who he saw every other day, whether he wanted to or not…

Shaking his head, he pulled up to the house where the solicitor directed him. Double-checking the address with the yellow note, he got out of the car, bracing himself for what might be behind that door.

Damon walked up the drive, manicured lawn to his left, garden-bed to his right, and he could see himself bent over, heaving, and completely out of it as the owner of the house was yelling at him to "get off of my fucking property." Damon thought that it was safe to say that whoever owned this house, he didn't exactly make the best first impression on them.

He was at the door now, and behind that door was the key to rest of his life. The only thing keeping him from taking the jump was his hesitation to knock and the _goddamned door_.

"Stop being such a baby, Damon, and knock on the fucking door already," snarled a voice. "Either that or you leave the kid here and do what you've wanted to do for since the news came to you: sit in the darkest, dustiest corner of the local bar and succumb to power of alcohol."

Dam shook his head. _No. Never again am I going to listen to you. You've done nothing but screw up every goddamned relationship I've ever had, and because of that, I never got the chance to tell my brother that I actually a crap about him before he died. I never told my mother I loved her past the age of thirteen, and I threw all the possibilities my father gave me back in his face._ He sighed aloud. _I did so many bad things… and I ran away from them all by joining the war, and in doing that, I left my brother to deal with my messes. If raising his kid is the _only_ chance that I'm ever going to be given to redeem myself, then I'm going to take it with both hands, and dive off the deep end, because they all deserve more from me…_

"…She deserves more from me," he whispered, and with that, he knocked on the door.

Once, twice, three times, and each time it drove it home, deeper into head, like a long-assed mantra, but it was there. Firm and set, and he was going to live by it each day, willing himself to make a better life for himself, for his niece. And that's all that mattered.

The front door swinging open is what snaps him back to reality, and Damon is barraged with memories.

"Well, well, well. Damon Salvatore, they told me you'd be coming, and I'm still not convinced that you've changed all that much. I guess this is your chance to prove yourself."


End file.
